| Summary: | Three species of white-toothed shrews of the order Eulipotyphla are present in central Europe: the bicolored (<i>Crocidura leucodon</i>), greater (<i>Crocidura russula</i>) and lesser (<i>Crocidura suaveolens</i>) white-toothed shrews. Their precise distribution in Germany is ill-defined and little is known about them as reservoirs for zoonotic pathogens (<i>Leptospira</i> spp., <i>Coxiella burnetii</i>, <i>Brucella</i> spp., <i>Anaplasma phagocytophilum</i>, <i>Babesia</i> spp., <i>Neoehrlichia mikurensis</i> and <i>Bartonella</i> spp.). We investigated 372 <i>Crocidura</i> spp. from Germany (n = 341), Austria (n = 18), Luxembourg (n = 2) and Slovakia (n = 11). West European hedgehogs (<i>Erinaceus europaeus</i>) were added to compare the presence of pathogens in co-occurring insectivores. <i>Crocidura russula</i> were distributed mainly in western and <i>C. suaveolens</i> mainly in north-eastern Germany. <i>Crocidura leucodon</i> occurred in overlapping ranges with the other shrews. <i>Leptospira</i> spp. DNA was detected in 28/227 <i>C. russula</i> and 2/78 <i>C. leucodon</i> samples. Further characterization revealed that <i>Leptospira kirschneri</i> had a sequence type (ST) 100. <i>Neoehrlichia mikurensis</i> DNA was detected in spleen tissue from 2/213 <i>C. russula</i> samples. Hedgehogs carried DNA from <i>L. kirschneri</i> (ST 100), <i>L. interrogans</i> (ST 24), <i>A. phagocytophilum</i> and two <i>Bartonella</i> species. This study improves the knowledge of the current distribution of <i>Crocidura</i> shrews and identifies <i>C. russula</i> as carrier of <i>Leptospira kirschneri</i>. However, shrews seem to play little-to-no role in the circulation of the arthropod-borne pathogens investigated.
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